Ramanuja and Schleiermacher : Toward a Constructive Comparative Theology

An exercise in comparative theology, examining the how a Christian and a Hindu theologian think God that sustains the existence of the cosmos through time. Can the comparison of two theologians vastly separated in space and time help contemporary theologians to think better? This book argues that it can. Ramanuja and Schleiermacher argues that the novel and burgeoning discipline of comparative theology is a powerful method for gaining critical insight into our inherited worldviews. Jon Paul Sydnor compares two pre-eminent theologians, Sri Ramanuja of the Hindu tradition and Friedrich Schleiermacher of the Christian tradition. Each argues that God sustains the universe at every moment of its existence, but they work out their detailed understandings of divine sustenance in very different ways. By comparing their description of God’s continual preservation of the universe, this book asks original, unfamiliar questions of each. This method demonstrates the incisive power of comparative theology to generate critical tension and its creative power to resolve it.